The point here is to get that you’re SPENDING. You know, you talk to your kids about spending money. You maybe talk to them about overspending or “living within their means”. Or maybe you are having these same discussions with your spouse or partner. We’re pretty conscientious about SPENDING money.
But we’re funny when it comes to spending this thing called TIME. Budgeting money and budgeting time are practically the same thing, but people don’t deal with it as the same. Somehow we will give away our TIME away in a way that we would never do with our MONEY. We could go into the “why” or the “psychology” of all that, but we won’t. For now we just want to NOTICE this strange behavior that sometimes happens. Sometimes we give away, or throw away, or let someone have our TIME, in a way we NEVER would if it was our money. We wouldn’t give away, or throw away, or let someone have our money in that way.
See, if I ask you if you want to buy my car for $10,000, and you are on top of your bank accounts and budgets, you will know if you are able to buy my car for $10,000 or not, and what, if any impact, it might have on YOU to buy that car. That’s pretty clear for you because money is FINITE for us. There’s an EXACT amount of money in your checking account right now and it is in fact that exact amount. It’s not maybe more or maybe less.
So the money you have is a finite thing. Now let’s talk more about TIME. So my scenario was about spending money on a car. Now let’s look at a scenario about spending TIME (not money).
Instead of asking you if you want to buy my car for $10,000 dollars, I’m going to ask you can get a project done. For example, “Could you please do this project by the end of the month?” Many people will say “Yes. Sure. I can fit that in.” Most people do not have a good CHECK REGISTER for their time. They most likely don’t have a register to look at, and clearly see how much time is in their Time Account, to then determine if they DO INFACT have enough time (in their time account) to SPEND doing this project, which is due by the end of the month. So then we say something in response, which is a little CRAZY like, “Ya, sure I’ll fit that in. You betcha,” without looking at, or consulting our TIME ACCOUNT Balance first.
